Solfleet: The Call of Duty (32 page)

It was a
beautiful morning, much like those back home in southeastern Pennsylvania where
Dylan had grown up. Those mornings in April or early May before the god-awful
heat and the thick, sweltering humidity of summer oozed in for their unwelcome
three or four month residency. He was glad he’d had an old pair of shorts in
his locker. His jeans would have been too warm.

A few of his
people, including Marissa, were seated at a table alongside the far railing.
Most of them, Dylan could see, had already grabbed whatever they wanted to eat
or drink and were chowing down like it was the last real meal they were going
to get for
another
two weeks. Who could blame them? They’d had nothing
but field rations to eat, three squares a day, every day for the last two. But
not Marissa. The only thing sitting in front of her was an empty patch of
tablecloth and her silverware, still wrapped in a napkin. She was still waiting
for those two cups of coffee he’d promised her.

He sighed.
Marissa. What was he going to do about her? What was he going to do about that
whole situation?

As he
approached the buffet, an incredible medley of mouthwatering aromas assaulted
his senses. Scrambled eggs and bacon, at least three different kinds of spiced
sausages, French toast, American style toast, a dozen different kinds of jams
and butters, assorted fruits and fruit juices. And real coffee! After two weeks
of powdered instant that tasted more like the dirt off the bottoms of his boots,
real honest to goodness coffee! Given half a chance he could have devoured
everything in sight and exploded a happy man.

He spoke briefly
to the attendant—a volunteer from the base Services unit who probably hadn’t
known he was a volunteer until his supervisor told him—then grabbed two large
mugs out of the plastic rack at the end of the table, filled them nearly to the
brim with coffee, and headed over to the table to join his squad mates.

Carolyn, his
wife, often complained to him—more like nagged him, really—about what she
referred to as his ‘infuriating habit of hanging around the barracks a lot
longer than necessary’ after an FTX or other such extended assignment. She
would inevitably claim that she’d made some kind of special plans to welcome
him back home but that his late arrival had somehow ruined them. He expected
the same thing would happen this time if he stayed too long, but this
particular FTX, relatively short though it had been, had also been one of the
toughest and most demanding exercises the platoon had gone through since he’d
been assigned to the unit. His people had performed their duties well beyond
his expectations, so there was no way he going home without first having some
breakfast and enjoying a little down time with those of them who were still ‘hanging
around.’ If Carolyn didn’t like it, tough. Besides, it wasn’t even zero
six-hundred yet, and it was Saturday. She wouldn’t be up for another two or
three hours.

Marissa was
wearing short—
very
short—blue denim cut-offs and a bright red tee shirt and
was sitting cross-legged in her chair with her sandals set aside on the deck
beside her. As Dylan set a mug down on the table in front of her, he caught
himself staring down at her smooth milky thighs and he quickly averted his
eyes. Not twenty minutes ago those gorgeous legs had been wrapped tenaciously
around his waist, inviting him, even urging him to pierce the soft flesh
between them. So, from a certain unspoken but no doubt mutually understood point
of view, he had a right to stare. But she was a fellow Marine and was his
immediate subordinate. It wouldn’t be good for the others to catch him drooling
over her as though she were a piece of fresh meat.

“Thank you,”
she said, smiling up at him.

“You’re
welcome,” he answered as he sat down to her immediate right in the only remaining
empty chair. No coincidence there, he was sure, but perhaps a little too obvious
for secrecy’s sake.

Sitting
there put him between Marissa and Private Sharon Baumgartner, the sort of cute
but too young looking, usually quiet red-headed farm girl from somewhere in
central Kansas. No one who didn’t know her would ever have thought to look at
her that she was a Marine of any kind, let alone one of the most elite Marines
in the entire Corps.

Private
Jeffrey Walters, another newbie, was in turn seated to her right. A black kid
from one of the roughest neighborhoods in South Detroit, he sported an old
knife scar that stretched from the outer corner of his right eye to the front
of his ear.

Sergeant
Billy Running Horse, the man with all the muscles, completed the circle of
five. In addition to being one of the squad’s fire team leaders, the rather
large Native American was the best electronics and explosives specialist in the
platoon. His father was some kind of bigwig at Solfleet Headquarters—Dylan
couldn’t remember exactly what his position was—but Billy always tried not to
let that fact get around too much. He’d once explained that he didn’t want
anyone thinking that his faster than average promotions had been due in any way
to his father’s influence, but Dylan suspected that he wasn’t really all that
sure himself.

Billy had
been Dylan’s biggest antagonist when he first arrived at the unit, admittedly
full of bitterness and resentment for having been passed over for promotion
into the squad sergeant’s position himself in favor of some new guy with no
real ground combat experience who’d only just earned his beret. He’d known
nothing of Dylan’s background and prior experience at that time, of course, but
since Dylan had outranked him, Billy had had no recourse. That was and always
had been just the way the military worked. It hadn’t taken long, however, for
Dylan to earn Running Horse’s respect once he’d gotten to know him, and now the
sergeant was one of his most loyal subordinates, as well as being his biggest
kidder. In fact, Billy had been the first to take Dylan’s initials, D.E.G., and
turn them into his nickname.

“Not eating
anything, Degger?” Running Horse asked.

“Our food’s
coming,” Dylan answered, identifying Marissa as the other half of ‘our’ with a
quick gesture.

As if he’d
been waiting for an off-stage cue, the buffet attendant approached the table
carrying two platefuls of food, which he set down in front of Dylan and
Marissa. “There you go, Sergeant Graves,” he said. “You and the lady enjoy your
breakfast. If you need anything else, just give me a sign. I’ll be right over.”

“Thanks,
Chris,” Dylan said, looking up at him.

“Thank you,
Dylan,” Marissa said, smiling brightly at him, exaggerating her appreciation.
Then she gazed across the table at Running Horse.

Dylan
followed her gaze and grinned. Yup. Any second now. It was coming, working its
way up. And...now.

“What the...”
Running Horse stammered, his eyes wide with disbelief. “What the hell is this?”
he zealously inquired as Chris walked off and left them to themselves. “Squad
leaders get waited on now?”

Marissa and
the others started laughing while Dylan, with a deadpan expression on his face,
calmly asked, “What’s wrong, Billy?”

“What’s
wrong?” He was starting to laugh a little as well, despite himself. “Let’s see.
Did anybody else here get waited on? No! I don’t think so! I know
I
had
to get my own food! Jesus, Degger, who did you bl...”

“You just have
to know how to talk to people, Billy,” Dylan pointed out as he tossed a
steaming forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth. “You can usually get
anything you want if you just know how to talk to people.” The eggs were so
good he just had to close his eyes and savor the entire experience. Steaming
hot and fluffy, perfectly seasoned with a touch of salt and freshly ground
black pepper. They practically dissolved in his mouth.

“Oh really?”
Billy had responded. “Well, I hope I can be a squad sergeant when I grow up so
I can learn how to talk to people, too.” With that last statement said, he
dropped the subject and fell silent for several seconds, which told Dylan one
thing. He was plotting his sweet revenge. The only question was who the victim
of that revenge would turn out to be. Billy rarely did anything directly.

“Anyone seen
Sergeant Franklin?” Dylan asked.

“He said he
was too tired to eat,” Marissa answered. “He grabbed a donut and went straight
up to his room.”

“Oh, okay. I
guess his squad did have it pretty rough out there this time.”

“I’ll say
they did,” Private Walters chimed in. “Looked to me like the L-T was running
them ragged the whole...” He fell silent as he glanced around the table to find
everyone staring at him, then suddenly looked as if he weren’t too sure it had
been such a good idea to speak out. He was, after all, the newest guy in the
unit. Almost everyone outranked him and he didn’t really know any of them that
well yet.

“Go on,”
Dylan finally coaxed as he lifted his mug to his lips. “Let’s hear it.” He
sipped his coffee—its heavenly aroma was surpassed only by its deep, rich taste—then
added, “Well come on, Jeff. If you have something to say, say it.”

The private
began, somewhat reluctantly, “Yes, Sergeant.” He briefly tipped his head toward
Private Baumgartner. “One of our...”

“Private
Walters,” Dylan hastily interrupted.

“Yes,
Sergeant?”

“Jeff. We’re
off duty, remember? This isn’t Boot Camp or Ranger school, or the regular
Marines. You earned your beret just like the rest of us. It’s okay to relax a
little bit. You don’t have to address me as ‘Sergeant’ every time you speak to
me.”

“Yes,
Sergeant. I mean...”

“Call me
Dylan, or Degger. Trust me, there’ll be plenty of time for formalities.”

“All right,
Degger.”

“Good. Now,
what were you saying?”

He began
again as the others took a minute to work on emptying their plates. “One of my
buddies from Ranger school is in Sergeant Franklin’s squad. He told me when we
got back this morning that the L-T ran them ragged over the northern peaks.”

“I’m sure he
did,” Marissa pointed out. “There are what...five or six newbies in Sergeant
Franklin’s squad?”

“Yes...uh...Corporal?”

“Teezer,”
she told him, though she didn’t bother to point out the fact that her nickname
wasn’t actually derived from the second syllable of her last name. He was still
too new to be trusted that far. Still too much of an unknown element. “The
lieutenant probably just wanted to see what they could do.”

“Yeah,”
Running Horse agreed, “at everyone else’s expense.”

“You’ve got
to admit, Billy, the new lieutenant knows his stuff,” Dylan pointed out.

Running
Horse looked at Dylan, flashed his bright white smile, and said, “I’ve been
meaning to ask you, Degger. Anything interesting happen downstairs in the
showers?”

Dillon
glared at him, clearly very serious, and despite whatever encouragement the few
short-lived, under-their-breath snickers that arose from around the table might
have provided him with, Running Horse’s smile abruptly disappeared. He’d begun
his revenge, no doubt innocently, but he’d chosen a very personal and dangerous
topic, and he knew better. So where did he intend to go with it?

“Anything
interesting?” Dylan asked cautiously. Where did he intend to go with it? Not at
Marissa. That was too obvious. Dylan waited a moment to make it look like he
was thinking it over, then shrugged his shoulders and shook his head and
answered, “No, not really.”

“Hey!”
Marissa complained, slapping him playfully on the arm.

Dylan turned
his eyes to her, but Running Horse didn’t give him a chance to accuse her of
anything. “Don’t blame her, Degger,” he said. “She didn’t say a word to anyone.”

“That’s
right. I didn’t,” she adamantly confirmed.

Then Running
Horse added, “Walters saw her step out of the shower stall ahead of you.”

Walters
stopped in mid chew and stared wide-eyed at Running Horse with shock and
disbelief written in big bold black letters across his face, but he was smart
enough not to say anything inappropriate. The Navajo was a lot bigger than he
was.

Running
Horse, his victim now identified, made a point of not returning the underling’s
horrified stare. “He said it looked like she was tucking in her towel, as if
she’d just wrapped it around herself.” With a brief shrug, he added, “He just
happened to mention it to us.”

“Oh, really?”
Dylan said, turning his gaze to the young private. “You just happened to
mention it to them, huh.”

With much
effort, Walters swallowed everything in his mouth, then tried to defend his
wounded honor. “Honest, Degger, I meant...I didn’t mean to imply...”

“So, without
talking to either me or the corporal first, you drew your own conclusions based
on what you thought you saw, even though there was no way you could be sure you
saw what you thought you saw, then told them what you thought you saw.” Dylan
could almost see the gears turning in Walters’ brain as the poor kid tried to
follow his reasoning and think of something to say in his own defense, but the
words just weren’t coming out.

The private
exhaled heavily and finally admitted his guilt. “Yes, Sergeant.”

“That’s how
nasty rumors get started, Private Walters,” Dylan scolded, his voice full of
mock anger. Actually, he was glad Running Horse had brought it up. It gave him
a chance to address what had happened and present his own defense without
appearing
too
defensive. In other words, it presented him with the perfect
opportunity to lie his way out of potential trouble, at least for the time
being. Maybe that had been Billy’s ultimate intent to begin with. It would be
just like him.

“For your
information, Jeff,” he resumed, “nothing happened in there. Not a thing. But by
talking to people out here in public about what you thought you saw after you
thought you saw it, even though you didn’t really see what you thought you saw
at all, you risked ruining our careers.”